Taking a step back, the entire #OP_RETURN is a symptom of something much bigger that stems from a single cause. It is caused by Mind Blindness.
The people looking at #bitcoin in isolation, that it is an "experiment", don't understand that other people are real, that they actually exist, and are relying on bitcoin.
They don't understand and can't weigh the importance of anything; to them, a side note in a "White Paper" or BiP from one person has the same weight as all the people on earth for the next 140 years.
To them, bitcoin is something on paper or on their screens; it exists outside of everything, and all the "problems" they see are related only specifically to the specification on paper, and not to how, where and why bitcoin is used and why it was created in the first place.
They're exactly like and interchangeable with Roger Ver, who is trapped in a mindset where only his own perspective is real, and everything else is imaginary, including all the people who use bitcoin.
The bitcoin specification isn't something that exists in isolation; its rules and features are not there for their own purposes; bitcoin has no purpose in absentia of people; therefore, to exclude people from any calculation used to measure whether an improvement is actually an improvement can only lead to error.
Without purpose, bitcoin is just another piece of software. If you remove purpose from your assessment of what should be added to bitcoin, you're leaving out the most important element of all...people.
If these proposers cared only about the specification on paper, they would write their software for private use in their own test network "OP_RETURN_net" and let it run. They've written their changes, pushed them, they're live and it's all running. Why do they need other people to run their software?
If for any reason you're not able to include the reality of other people in your assessments, then you should not be working on improving bitcoin, because to you, everything, every improvement is the same if something get's "better".
On paper, removing limits looks good
On paper, low fees forever looks good
On paper, faster confirmation time looks good
On paper, anything can be cast to look good
But real people don't live on paper, and bitcoin was written to serve real people, not the masturbatory whims of people who don't care much about anything other than "the work". Improvements in one aspect is the myopic, mind bling way of looking at anything; the unintended second and third order effects are what Mind Blind people can't perceive and that's the danger.
As I've said before, improving bitcoin is a good thing, but without a clear definition of what an improvement is, anyone, any person with any characteristic can make a claim that any change is an "improvement".
Years ago there were some very strange people who wanted to add an identity layer to bitcoin. To them, this was an "improvement" simply because it added something that men in their culture have become inured to; constantly identifying yourself to do anything.
Their disgusting proposal died but what it showed was that Socialists are literally everywhere, and will bring the Socialism with them when they make proposals. That's very dangerous.
Bitcoin should do only one thing, and it should not change. It is not "progress" to see new point versions of bitcoin being constantly released; bitcoin isn't like other pieces of software; its entire purpose is a money supply that doesn't change.
Progress is a modern day cult, filled with "Progressives" who will throw literally everything out of the window so that they are "moving forward". They're insane, and bitcoin was designed to keep psychologically normal people protected from them.
Bitcoin's development can be protected by the people who use it. The simple act of selecting a client can keep the tweakers, the fiddlers, the Progressives, the elitists, the gullible, the Mind Blind, and ultimately, the State out of everyone's money.
And bitcoin really is "everyone's money". It isn't the sole preserve of people who bark "ack" on a Mi¢ro$oft owned and Controlled software repository service. The power to control what the network is is in the hands of people who run the reference clients.
If any group of developers refuses to knock it off and take advice, then everyone will abandon their client, and these thrill seekers will switch to trying to sabotage the Linux Kernel, where they will find a suitably extremely hostile environment to nonsense from a benevolent dictator with a proven record of keeping garbage out.
These people want to enslave the network to their perverted and selfish aims, like the Ordinals crowd. They don't care about other people, even to the extent that they're frightening the skin off of users who have put their whole lives into bitcoin and have skin in the game. They just don't care about other people, and perhaps, can't care.
You are going to have to keep an eye on this matter, and be vigilant, because some people with an aggressive compulsion to change bitcoin will never stop. You have the power to neutralize their urges by simply not runing their software. If the whole network stops "upgrading" then they are permanently neutralized and the problem is solved. Only bug fixes should be accepted by node runners; nothing else.
No more threats. No more elitism. No more risk of losing money.
Then everyone can get on with building on bitcoin, saving, sending and spending it, and building the future, where real people will be living and relying on what everyone is using and building today.
-beautyon
